Sophie Whisnant: A first-timer's experience at Bonnaroo music festival

Wednesday

Jun 14, 2017 at 8:00 AMJun 14, 2017 at 10:11 AM

Whisnant took some time off from her StarNews internship to travel to Tennessee.

By Sophie Whisnant StarNews Staff

After four days of camping in tents on a farm with no running water in extreme heat, surrounded by strangers of all ages and nationalities, I woke up the last morning of Bonnaroo thinking I never wanted the experience to end.

While I missed sleeping in a bed and hot showers, my first time attending the Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee was worth it. The non-stop music with performances from bands including U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, and Chance the Rapper blew my mind, but what really made the experience unforgettable was the overwhelming sense of community.

The journey to the farm began Wednesday afternoon. In a car stuffed with water bottles, bagels, and a lot of trail mix, I set off with friends from Wilmington. We rotated drivers and drove through the night, arriving at the campground at 5:30 AM Thursday. From there, the weekend was off and running.

I immediately caught on to just how diverse the crowd at Bonnaroo is. Through a mutual friend, my friends and I ended up camping with our new friends from Australia. We were the first Americans they had met and they were our first Australians, and we embraced each other from the start. We spent hours talking and laughing. We taught them how to say “y’all” and they treated us like one of their “mates.”

That first day we explored the festival grounds. The creativity of the event was evident at every turn. Festival goers graffitied every available wall and I got a glimpse of the personalities of the 65,000 plus people around me. I saw people wearing everything, from being topless to full on T-Rex costumes. The concerts turned into seas of handmade totem poles and posters with pictures of memes, lights and bubble machines.

Each concert we went to was just as over the top as the people attending them. Musical acts ranged from bluegrass to rap to electronic dance music, but even though the acts were so different they all performed with high energy. That was clear at Lorde’s concert, where I watched her notorious raw and awkward dance moves that only she can pull off. At Flatbush Zombies a colorful background visual mirrored their energy on stage. One of my favorite performances came from Portugal. The Man. They had the crowd screaming along the words to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2” before spinning it into one of their biggest hits “Purple Yellow Red and Blue.”

There was so much good music, it was impossible to see it all but we tried. Each set ended and sent me off running through the crowd to make it to one of the 10-plus stages.

Between the music, you could hang out at the mini beach complete with sand and palm trees, or see a DJ at the Christmas Club Barn, decorated with reindeer, santas and fake snow. I took breaks from the bands to grab some of the delicious food, including a Philly cheesesteak Asian dumpling, something I certainly didn’t know existed.

At Bonnaroo, Friday is known as High-Five Friday. That day I high-fived and celebrated with people of all ages, from about 6 to 60. It didn’t matter what skin color, what age, or how badly the person needed a shower, everyone high-fived everyone.

One of my favorite moments came during The Weeknd’s set that closed out the festival Sunday night. The show itself was incredible, with its variety of lights, pyrotechnics and fireworks accompanying some of the most well known pop songs of my generation. Before the concert started and everyone was at their sweatiest, most tired point a young guy with a messy afro walked through the crowd holding up a big electric fan in everyone’s face.

The fan man personified what Bonnaroo calls the Bonnoroovian Code. The code remained unspoken for years but was finally put to words, and one of the main points and Bonnaroo motto is “radiate positivity.”

There was positivity at every turn. At a festival where people are drinking a lot, taking a lot of drugs and crammed into small spaces, I was expecting there to be some conflict or drama, but there never was. There was positivity literally radiating in the air, and I fed off of it and thrived because of it.

I love my bed. I love hot showers and home cooked meals. But the friendships, the music, the experience, left me driving away from the farm Monday morning thinking “how did it go by so fast?” I don’t think Bonnaroo has seen the last of me.

Reporter Sophie Whisnant can be reached at 910-343-2310 or Sophie.Whisnant@StarNewsOnline.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.